You've got to love Mount Rainier, the closest full-service national park to Portland. We even get a peak at it now and then.

Here is some Mount Rainier trivia, though there is nothing trivial about Washington's highest mountain. The stratovolcano that can be seen from some parts of Portland and is the city's closest national park getaway that we have (though Staircase entrance to Olympic National Park is about the same distance):

WITH AGE COMES RESPECT: Established as a national park on March 2, 1899, by President McKinley, Mount Rainier National Park is the fifth-oldest park in the National Park System. Only Yellowstone in Wyoming and Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon in California are older. The park covers 235,612 acres (365 square miles), 97 percent of which is protected as wilderness.

NAME GAME: Mount Rainier was named for Rear Admiral Peter Rainier of the Royal British Navy on May 8, 1792, by Capt. George Vancouver, who saw the peak while sailing in Puget Sound. Numerous attempts were made over the years to change the mountain's name to Tahoma, the word used by Native Americans. The last serious attempt came in 1924, when the U.S. Senate passed a bill approving the change, but the House of Representatives balked.

HIGH ENOUGH FOR MOST: The latest official estimate of Mount Rainier's height is 14,411.1 feet, making it the fifth-highest mountain in the lower 48 states and 19th highest in the country counting Alaska. The highest point is called Columbia Crest, which sits at the west end of a circular crater that has a diameter of 1,400 feet. Rainier has two other summits -- 14,150-foot Point Success and 14,112-foot Liberty Cap. The best angle for viewing all three summits is from the west. Look for them while driving Interstate 5 past Centralia, Wash.

TO THE SUMMIT: About 9,000 climbers attempt to reach the summit of Mount Rainier each year, and about 4,700 succeed (at least they say so). The elevation gain is 9,000 feet over eight miles via the easiest route. The mountain has 56 established climbing routes, but 80 percent of the climbers tackle the two most popular routes (via Camp Muir and Camp Schurman). Rainier has claimed the lives of more than 80 climbers since the first recorded fatality in 1897. Normal ascent time is two to three days.

HOW DO THEY CARRY ENOUGH FOOD? The 93-mile Wonderland Trail, which circles Mount Rainier, is one of America's ultimate backpacking challenges. It usually requires 10 to 12 days to complete. Hikers send food ahead to pick up at two spots along the trail. Elevation gained and lost along the way is 22,786 feet. The Pacific Crest Trail, the West's most famous path, skirts the eastern boundary of the national park because Mount Rainier itself is 12 miles west of the Cascade crest.

IT SNOWS UP HERE: Paradise, on Mount Rainier's south side, receives an annual average of 630 inches of snow. The world record was set there -- 1,122 inches or 93.5 feet -- in 1971-72, until Mount Baker took away the title in 1999. The road to Paradise is plowed in winter, when good-weather weekends are busy with snow campers, back-country skiers and snowshoers.

WATCH OUT BELOW: Mount Rainier is classified as an active volcano, although a Mount St. Helens-type explosion isn't expected anytime soon. The biggest danger is from glacier-generated debris and mud flows. About 100,000 people live in nearby areas that were buried by 60 giant flows during the past 10,000 years.

NEED A COLD DRINK? Mount Rainier, the most glaciated mountain in the lower 48 states, has 25 named glaciers, plus numerous smaller ice patches. The thickest ice (705 feet) is on the Carbon Glacier, which is the longest (5.7 miles) and has the lowest terminus (3,500 feet) of any glacier in the lower 48 states. The Emmons Glacier covers 4.3 square miles and is the largest in the United States outside Alaska.

HOW'S THE WATER? Much of Rainier's moisture is locked up in snow and ice, but the park has 292 lakes, plus 470 streams and rivers. The main rivers are the Cowlitz, which flows to the Columbia River at Longview, and the White, Puyallup and Nisqually, which drain into Puget Sound. Mowich Lake is the largest (122.6 acres) and deepest (57 feet) lake. Fishing is good for cutthroat, Eastern brook and rainbow trout. Anglers don't need a license in the park but must follow state regulations.

TUMBLING DOWN: Fairy Falls, out of sight at the head of Stevens Canyon, is the park's highest waterfall with a 700-foot drop in two sections. The most spectacular of the park's 122 named falls is 320-foot Comet Falls, a two-mile hike on the west fork of Van Trump Creek. Narada Falls, a 168-foot drop on the Paradise River, is the park's most-viewed waterfall because it's a short walk from the road to Paradise.

THIRD MILLENNIUM: When the year 2000 arrived, some of Mount Rainier's trees entered their third millennium. Several Douglas firs in the Grove of the Patriarchs are estimated to be 1,000 years old. Ten of the trees are 25 feet in circumference, and another is 35 feet. A grove of Alaska yellow cedars on the upper Laughingwater Creek Trail has trees more than 1,200 years old.

GOING LOW TO GROW HIGH: The whitebark pine, often seen growing horizontally along the ground in a formation known by the German word krumholtz, is one of the few hardy trees that can survive at the upper reaches of Rainier's 6,500-foot treeline. The gray-black bird that frequents the tree is a Clark's nutcracker.

THE SETTING AT SUNRISE: The road to 6,400 feet at Sunrise Lodge is the highest paved road in Washington. It usually opens around July 4. Some visitors consider Sunrise to be the most beautiful mountain setting accessible by road in the lower 48 states. For dog owners, the only trail at Sunrise that allows pets is the one-mile Pet Exercise Trail (through hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail can get an exemption from the no-dog rule).

MELTED AWAY: Visitors still come to Paradise looking for the ice caves, which were once the most visited attraction in the park. The caves were closed in 1971 because they became too dangerous to enter. By 1993, the lower Paradise Glacier had melted, and the caves no longer exist. The caves were hollowed out by water running beneath the glacier. They had a curious blue light, and more than eight miles of passages were mapped.

ANYONE FOR A STEAM BATH?: Mount Rainier's famous summit steam caves are a 1.5-mile maze of passages melted by volcanic heat between the walls of the crater and the snow that fills it. Scientists have descended 540 feet into the snow beneath the highest elevation of the eastern crater. The western crater has an accessible pool of meltwater in the summer. The pool is 120 by 40 feet and 18 feet deep. It sits at 14,000 feet above sea level and is covered by a canopy of ice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mount Rainier has filled hundreds of books. Three of the most interesting are "The Big Fact Book About Mount Rainier," by Bette Filley, published by Dunamis House; "A Centennial Celebration, Washington's Mount Rainier National Park" by Tim McNulty and Pat O'Hara, published by the Mountaineers; and "The Measure of a Mountain," by Bruce Barcott, Sasquatch Books.

This trivia was originally posted in 2008. Putting it out again make it easier to find by a search engine. Most of the photos have never been online.